Patients’ perception of care during special radiological examinations

BACKGROUND: Patients’ perception of care is considered to influence their satisfaction with the service provided. However, this has received minor attention in radiography practice in Nigeria with no quantitative study from available literature search. METHOD: A total of 200 self-completion questionnaires were delivered to four radiology departments within the north-eastern states of Nigeria (50 to each centre). The questionnaires included questions on patient demographics as well as ordinal scales for patients to rate their care on various indices and a 10 visual analogue scale to rate their overall satisfaction, while an open-ended question was used to assess patients’ expectation of radiology staff. 142 questionnaires (71%) were returned. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were done. Tests were two-tailed with p < 0.05 indicating statistical significance. RESULTS: Patients’ perception of care correlated significantly with patients’ satisfaction. CONCLUSION: Good staff-patient interaction and proper organisational behaviour could improve patients’ perception of care.